I am in a good mood. I have been for days. Eden has ended the no-touch rule and we have moved from being platonic friends to something more. The something more involves hand-holding and hugs and occasional kisses, and whether they involve yellow paint or not, the kisses are all pure sunshine.
It was almost worth losing Eden for two years just to find her again, because being with her takes away the hurt I’ve struggled with for so long. I can feel the hard knot of anger inside me softening, loosening. The knot is coming undone, and though the idea of that has always terrified me before, it feels OK. Without anger, other feelings will flood in, and some of them will be hard to bear, but perhaps it’s time to face them.
I can see Eden waking up too, chipping away the icy shell she has hidden behind for so long. If she can do it, I can do it.
My running is not so much an anger remedy as fun these days; Eden has been running with me a few times and says I’m brilliant.
‘Properly brilliant,’ she said the last time, meaning it. ‘You should train, enter races, do it seriously. There’s a club at school, y’know!’
‘I don’t do clubs,’ I told her.
‘I think you should do this one,’ Eden said. ‘Show them there’s more to you than javelins and report cards. Show them you’re good at something. Show yourself that you are!’
I said I’d think about it.
I don’t much care what the teachers think about me, but running; maybe that would be cool. Maybe.
Most days now I take Rocket and run up to Miss Smith’s house to feed the fish and water the plants, but I haven’t actually seen the old lady for a while. There’s no sign of her today either. I knock on the door but there’s no reply – no sound at all from inside. I press my face against the dirt-streaked window, scanning past the empty armchair to the chaotic sitting room beyond. Books and newspapers are piled up in corners, ornaments crowd the shelves and side tables, dirty plates and empty cups are perched all around and the blue knitted shawl lies abandoned on the carpet.
Unease seeps through me and I push it away, impatient. Maybe she’s just sleeping in? Maybe she’s gone away for a few days, to stay with family? Rocket whimpers and presses his head against my leg, and I promise myself I’ll come back later, with Eden, to check that everything is OK.
In the end, though, I forget, because Eden texts and tells me to come to the coffee shop in town, that afternoon at four.
What’s going on? I ask. Is everything OK?
Everything is more than OK, she says. See you later!
44
Eden
On Monday, something amazing happens; Tasha rings from France. It turns out that she got not just my letter, but one from Hasmita too, and even a postcard from Ryan.
‘It had a picture of a cheese and pineapple pizza on it,’ she tells me. ‘That boy is seriously deranged.’
‘Seriously,’ I agree.
‘I thought you’d forgotten me,’ she says.
‘I thought you had!’
There is silence, apart from a slight crackling on the line. ‘We didn’t have Internet for ages,’ she explains. ‘We do now, though. We got new email addresses and I sent you a whole bunch of emails to tell you, but you never replied.’
‘I didn’t get any emails!’ I argue. ‘Oh, hang on; we changed our provider last year, when we updated our broadband. We got new email addresses too.’
‘That explains it,’ she says. ‘I thought – well, it doesn’t matter. Everything will be OK now!’
There was another silence then, because of course, some things will never be OK again.
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you,’ Tasha says, eventually. ‘I didn’t know what to say. That summer. It didn’t seem real …’
‘It was real,’ I say with a sigh. ‘But I know what you mean.’
‘How are the others?’ she wants to know. ‘I’m going to call them too, but I wanted to speak to you first. I couldn’t believe it when I read your letter, and Hasmita’s, and Ryan’s postcard. I got it all so wrong. I thought that you guys would stick together, help each other through. I didn’t think you’d need me.’
‘We’ll always need you,’ I tell her. ‘Always. And we didn’t stick together – we fell apart. Things are changing, though. We’re connecting again, all of us. We can help each other now!’
‘We won’t be the Heart Club any more,’ Tasha points out. ‘It’ll be different.’
‘Different is good,’ I say. ‘The Heart Club is over.’
It doesn’t feel like the end of something, though. It feels like a beginning.
Tasha and I hatch a plan, and that afternoon Ryan, Hasmita and I meet up in town. We grab a window table in our favourite cafe and Ryan orders hot chocolates with whipped cream and marshmallows all round, even though it’s August. Hot chocolate was always one of Andie’s favourites.
I feel a pang of guilt as I think of Andie – she still hasn’t texted, and it’s days since I’ve texted her, or even thought of her. Shame seeps through me. I’ve loved hanging out with Ryan, Hasmita, Chloe, Flick and Ima, and I’m thrilled to have made contact with Tasha, but I didn’t mean to forget about Andie.
Ryan has smuggled a packet of Jammie Dodgers into the cafe and shares them out under the table, and we talk about a million things. About how strict the teachers are at St Bernadette’s, and how Ryan holds the school record for the most detentions in one term at Moreton Park Academy, and how we should all meet up soon for a long bike ride with a picnic at the end of it.
And then I open my laptop and click on Skype. I ring through to Tasha and a few minutes later the three of us are clustered around the computer and a big picture of Tasha comes up on the screen.
‘Oh wow!’ she yelps. ‘Oh, wow, wow, wow! It is so good to see you guys!’
Tasha looks so grown-up, so cool, so French, I suppose. She doesn’t act cool, though. The whole time we’re talking, she squeals and laughs and bounces around, the way she used to.
Hasmita is shy to start with, ashamed at not even having tried to contact the girl who was once her very best friend, but none of us are judging here. We’ve all made big mistakes, acted badly, messed up. We all know why.
If we can’t forgive and forget, who can?
‘You will have to come out here!’ Tasha exclaims. ‘All of you! October half-term, maybe. Or next summer! We can plan it. You can camp in the garden … and help me with my summer jobs, and meet my friends, and just … I don’t know, just have fun!’
‘Sounds good,’ Hasmita says.
‘Sounds awesome,’ I correct her.
‘Sounds like a plan.’ Ryan grins. ‘And you can come over here too. It’s time we had a proper reunion!’
I can see the pieces falling into place again, the muddles and misunderstandings cleared up, swept away. It will take time, and it won’t be perfect, but it’s a start.
It’s not until later, walking home through the park, that Ryan tells me he hasn’t seen Miss Smith for a few days. Instantly I feel guilty. I’ve been so wrapped up in finding Hasmita and Tasha again that I have neglected the little old lady, abandoned Fish and Chips.
‘Are you worried?’ I ask. ‘Should we call the police? Speak to the neighbours?’
‘I’m sure she’s OK,’ Ryan says. ‘I just think we should go over tomorrow and check. It’s probably just coincidence; or maybe I’m calling too early. I usually go when I’m out with Rocket for a morning run.’
‘Tomorrow is good,’ I reply, fingers curling round the creased paper crane in my jacket pocket. ‘Plus,
I had an idea for how to make that old wreck of a tree look better. You’ll like it. Paper cranes!’
His face lights up. ‘We could hang them from the branches,’ he says. ‘I’m quite quick at making them. I could probably make twenty or thirty before tomorrow, if I really tried.’
‘I can beat that,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve got almost three hundred done, made from bright origami paper. It’ll look fantastic!’
‘Cool,’ Ryan says. ‘Plus, we have a string of solar-powered fairy lights in the garage. I’ll bring them too. We’ll go round about half-ten, then?’
‘Do you really think she’s OK?’ I ask.
‘I hope so,’ Ryan says. ‘It’s probably nothing, only I don’t think she has any immediate family looking out for her. She’s a “miss”, isn’t she? No children, no grandchildren.’
I bite my lip.
‘She’s got us,’ I say, and I hope that’s enough.
45
Ryan
The next morning we knock at the side door, but nobody answers.
‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ Eden says. ‘She might be in the bedroom or the bathroom. It’s still quite early. Give her time.’
I haven’t seen Miss Smith for six days now, but I can’t say that out loud – it sounds too scary. Instead, I peer through the window and see the same cups and plates in the same places as yesterday, the same blue shawl lying on the floor. I have a bad feeling about this.
‘Let’s get started on the tree,’ Eden is saying. ‘Just wait till she gets up and comes to the window and sees it. She’ll love it!’
So we decorate the tree, because I want to believe that everything is still going to be OK, that happy endings can happen to ordinary people if you want them badly enough.
I drape the solar-powered fairy lights through the bare branches, tilt the little solar reflectors upwards to the light. Eden’s paper cranes are folded from patterned paper in rainbow colours, neatly strung together in hanging garlands of ten, and I loop them over the wizened branches while Eden takes a needle and thread and starts threading my own, less colourful cranes together.
‘If she doesn’t appear by the time we’re finished, I think we should speak to the neighbours,’ I say. ‘Just to be on the safe side. OK?’
‘OK,’ Eden agrees. ‘Don’t worry, though. I bet she’s just late getting up. Or maybe a neighbour has taken her out to the shops.’
She’s still speaking when a flash silver car pulls up at the gate. A young man in a too-tight suit gets out, carrying some kind of wooden pole with a sign attached. He marches in through the gate, pushes the pole into a corner of flower bed and begins to hammer it home.
‘Hey!’ I yell. ‘What are you doing?’
The man just about jumps out of his skin.
‘Oi!’ he shouts. ‘Clear off, you kids! We don’t want any vandalism here – this house is for sale!’
I go cold all over.
‘What d’you mean, the house is for sale?’ Eden challenges. ‘What about Miss Smith? Where will she go?’
The man just laughs. ‘Bit late to worry about the old lady now,’ he says. ‘She’s gone. She had a fall last week – she’s in hospital, and once she’s on the mend she’ll be moved into a nursing home. Broken hip, I think they said. She’s not fit enough to live on her own, not any more. In her nineties, she is, apparently. Her nephew has put the house on the market. They’ll need to sell to pay the nursing home fees.’
‘Which nursing home?’ I demand.
‘I’m not at liberty to say!’
‘We’re her friends,’ Eden cuts in. ‘We want to visit her!’
But the man just tells us we’re trespassing on private property and if we don’t push off he’ll ring the police.
46
Eden
We sneak back to Miss Smith’s house at midnight with a bucket, a torch and a plan to rescue Fish and Chips.
‘They’re ours, technically,’ Ryan whispers, as we turn into Bennetts Lane. ‘We bought them for Miss Smith, and if she’s gone then they go back to being ours. We’ll just have to get a fish tank, that’s all.’
‘It’s all my fault,’ I say. ‘I promised I’d come every day to see Miss Smith and I didn’t. I was going to make her cakes and everything, but I got sidetracked with finding Hasmita and Tasha.’
‘Not your fault,’ Ryan says firmly. ‘You were doing what had to be done. I was here every day to feed the fish, and I didn’t see Miss Smith in all that time, so technically it was my fault. I knew something didn’t feel right, but I kept telling myself it would be OK.’
‘Maybe we’re both to blame.’ I say.
‘Maybe neither of us are,’ Ryan counters. ‘Not everything that happens is somebody’s fault; sometimes bad things happen and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.’
I blink. There’s an ache of sadness in my throat that threatens to unravel me. Tears sting my eyes, but of course, I never cry; I’m glad the darkness hides my face. Sometimes bad things happen …
We open the gate and my torch beam swoops over the looming shape of a skip that has pitched up on the driveway since our visit this morning. The skip is piled high with what looks like rubbish. I imagine furniture and clothes and anything in good shape will be taken to charity shops or hauled away to be sold, but all the rest, the everyday bits and pieces of a life, have been dumped.
In the torchlight, I catch a glimpse of the old deckchair I’d set up for Miss Smith to sit in the sun, chucked out like junk, the blue knitted shawl wedged behind it. I tug at the shawl. Maybe, if we can find out where Miss Smith is, we could take it to her. I remember the way her fingers used to stroke the soft wool, hugging it round her as if to ward off the cold even on the hottest days.
As I pull the shawl free, a big brown envelope is dislodged too, and falls on to the drive. I pick it up and shine the torch beam across it. In faded ink, I see the name Peter John Smith written in one corner.
‘Ryan, look,’ I say. ‘I wonder if this is the Peter that Miss Smith kept thinking was you?’
‘What’s inside?’
I slide a few papers and a handful of creased photographs out of the envelope. The pictures are a timeline of somebody’s life; a baby wrapped in a knitted shawl, a toddler clutching a handmade toy rabbit, a boy in a sleeveless pullover and short trousers with his arms around a black and white mongrel. The last picture shows a teenager with unruly dark hair and a cheeky grin, sitting beside a garden pond with the dog at his side.
‘No wonder she mistook you for Peter,’ I breathe. ‘You look just like him – and this must be Patch! Who was Peter, d’you think? What happened to him?’
Ryan takes the papers from my hands and scans through them in the torchlight. A birth certificate, dated 1945, for Peter John Smith, mother Elsa Smith of 41 Bennetts Lane; father not named.
Miss Smith had a child out of wedlock, a war child, when she was just a teenager herself. How did she manage to keep her son in an era when unmarried mothers were often forced to give up their babies for adoption? She must have loved him very much. Did her parents stand by her, support her? Was 41 Bennetts Lane her family home? Who was Peter’s father; was he married to someone else, or did he die in the last few months of the war?
They are questions we will probably never know the answers to.
Ryan sifts through school reports, a certificate awarded for excellence in running, a faded birthday card signed by Peter in the wobbly, uncertain handwriting of a small child.
‘Look, Eden,’ Ryan whispers. ‘Look …’
The last of the papers is a death certificate; Peter John Smith died of TB in 1959, aged fourteen.
Something shifts inside me. Unwanted thoughts flood into my head – bad thoughts, sad thoughts. I push them away again, but my heart is racing and I feel physically sick.
‘Are you OK, Eden?’ Ryan asks, and I square my shoulders, come back to reality.
‘They threw all this away as if it was rubbish!’ I say angrily. ‘Miss Smith’s most precious memories, chucked out with cartons of curdled milk and packets of food long past their sell-by date! It’s wrong, Ryan! Peter was her only son; he should count for more than this!’
I glance at the picture of Peter as a baby again, and suddenly I understand why Miss Smith was so attached to the pale blue shawl in my hands. It’s the baby shawl in the photograph.
‘Ryan,’ I say. ‘We have to take these things to Miss Smith, at the hospital. We have to!’
‘You’re right,’ Ryan says. ‘We do.’
We leave the empty bucket on the driveway, lift a couple of paper-crane garlands from the old tree and set off to walk to the hospital. The darkened streets are silent and it’s chilly now, so I wrap the shawl round me for warmth and think about the days when it was wrapped round someone different, wrapped tightly to keep out the cold and the harsh words of the world.
‘They’ll never let us in,’ I say. ‘It’s past midnight. Way past visiting time …’
‘We’ll find a way,’ Ryan promises. ‘Trust me.’
Somehow, I do.
47
Ryan
It’s not that I plan to steal a wheelchair, more that one happens to materialize right in front of me. The occupant, a man with a plaster cast on his leg, has levered himself out to sit on a bench and smoke with couple of disreputable characters from the accident and emergency waiting room.
I walk confidently up to the abandoned wheelchair and steer it towards A&E, and Eden falls into step beside me, jumping into the chair just as I march through the double doors. A&E is absolute chaos at this time of night, and that has to be to our advantage, but I can only guess at which doors are code-protected and which ones aren’t. I walk confidently past the reception desk and stop to talk to a nurse who is marking things on a clipboard.
Broken Heart Club Page 15